


That's Our Deal

by PiratePlume



Category: All Elite Wrestling, Being The Elite (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, theres nothin bad in here except maybe a little bit of foul language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-25 05:13:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21830542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PiratePlume/pseuds/PiratePlume
Summary: Hangman Page has been great friends with Glitter Sidesplitter, another member of the roster at AEW, for quite some time.  They both enjoy horseback riding and own horses, and go together often.  Glitter has had a thing for Hangman for a long, long time, but she's too scared to ruin the friendship and doesn't want to say or do anything that'd jeopardize it.  Maybe, just maybe she won't be the one who has to make the first move after all...
Relationships: Adam Page/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 6





	That's Our Deal

**Author's Note:**

> This came from an ask prompt for slowburn with Hangman Page. I was inspired by snarkandsarcasmwrites on tumblr for answering the asks with these beautiful one-shot fics and decided to try my hand at answering my own with one too. Of course, I had to add horses in there. Who would I be if I didn't write about Adam with horses?

“How long have you two been friends now?”

“I don’t know. Year and a half? Two years?”

“And you haven’t made a move on him _once_?”

“No! Remember? I made the mistake of being a little extra flirty one time when we went out to ride Honey and Bandit and I swear he all but ignored me. I think that was the only time Adam has ever been remotely rude to me and it was mortifying. So, no. I will not risk us losing our friendship because I can’t keep it in my pants. I’m perfectly capable of just being his friend.”

“Uh-huh,” her tag team partner, Neon (ring name, of course – Nihilistic Neon), peered over her phone at her with an expression that said she wasn’t buying it. Beneath that look, Glitter (also a ring name – Glitter Sidesplitter) squirmed.

“Neon, he doesn’t even like me like that. That’s why he didn’t respond when I tried to cross the line and see if he’d take the bait. We’re friends. We’re good friends. Hell, I’d say we’re best friends, even. I can call him or text him any time of night just to talk and he’s there. It never feels awkward or forced when we’re together. We spend almost every afternoon together out at the ranch. I don’t think I could handle losing him if I finally fessed up and told him how I felt. He’s become such an important part of my life.”

Neon had set her phone down and was watching her. She shook her head slowly back and forth and sighed.

“You’ve got it bad, girlfriend.”

Glitter groaned, pressing her hands against her face and sinking down deep into the couch.

“When I came and asked you for advice on how to bury my feelings you weren’t supposed to expose them and make me realize I’m fucking in love with him. It’s never going to happen, Neon. I’m not the kind of girl Adam’s looking for. We’re friends. Sometimes life isn’t fair. Sometimes you don’t get the storybook ending. The prince doesn’t get to the princess. That whole thing.”

“Wow…” Neon’s shapely, sharp black brow lifted, and her green eyes steadied on Glitter, slouched in anguish. “You do remember I’m supposed to be the doom and gloom one in our little dynamic, right?”

“Shut up.” Glitter muttered and smiled, shaking her head.

“Glitz,” Neon sighed, setting her phone down and leaning forward on the couch across from the one Glitter was sitting on. “Do you remember a couple months back when you had your singles match on Dark?”

“Yeah?” Glitter frowned.

“Well, I was in the back, watching the match on the monitors, right?”

“Yeah…” Glitter didn’t understand where Neon was going with this. They always supported one another if ever they were in a match the other wasn’t wrestling in.

“Adam was there too. Watching you. Remember? He was right there when you came backstage, celebrating you and telling you about all the ways you’ve improved since you started with the company, how you were selling it to the crowd…”

“Neon… that doesn’t mean anything. He was just being a good friend. I asked him to help me train a bit after we first became friends, remember? He was just… congratulating me for all that hard work paying off.”

“Aye,” a frustrated breath disturbed them both, and Neon and Glitter glanced to see their friend, Mariana had entered the room at some point during the conversation. She waved the water bottle she was holding at Glitter and looked at Neon. “¡Ella nunca va a escuchar!” 

“Hey! –” Glitter started, having enough grasp on Spanish to know Mariana had said something about her not listening. Before she could stick up for herself, Mariana shushed her.

“You can tell her about how Adam gets distracted every time she enters a room. You can tell her about how Adam starts smiling that dumb smile we all make fun of when she’s talking. You can tell her about how it’s so fucking clear to the rest of us that they’re madly in love with each other, but clearly she knows everything and therefore is not going to listen.”

Mariana flopped herself down on the couch beside Neon and lifted her boots, planting the heels on the little table in front of them. She gave Glitter a pointed look.

“Okay,” Glitter shook her head, “if any of that were the least bit true, I’d have noticed by now.”

Flickers and flashes of memories came speeding at her, like the way Adam grinned the moment they crossed paths with a smile that lit up his face and made her stomach do somersaults. But he smiled at everyone, didn’t he? He was a genuine, kindhearted soul. She remembered the few times they stood near one another in a room, Adam sometimes gently touched her, let his fingers brush her arm or her hand or even, once, her thigh. But it could just be natural reflex, she argued. If he was trying to touch her intimately, she’d know. Everyone was just reading too much into something and Glitter wasn’t interested in ruining the friendship she and Adam had. Let the rumors keep flying. She’d learn to bury her feelings her own damn self. Some help her friends were!

Her phone buzzed in her pocket and, giving it a quick read, she leaped for the chance to escape this lunacy like she was drowning and had been thrown a life preserver.

“Well, this has not been insightful at all. You guys are all fucking crazy.” She flashed her characteristic ‘mad grin’ she was known for in-character. “It’s time for me to go take care of Honey.”

“Have fun with Adam!” Neon called teasingly at her back just as the door swung closed.

* * * * * *

Glitter glanced askance at Adam, who sat astride his bay frame overo gelding, Bandit, not for the first time that afternoon since they’d met up at the stables. He was in his head, which left her plenty of time to study his profile, handsome as a devil, and wonder if what Neon and Mariana had said was true. Did Adam really light up when she entered a room? Was it because they were such good friends – she’d dare to say best friends – or was it because he felt something romantic for her too? The only person who had the answers was Adam, but the only way to know them was to ask. If she asked flat-out if he had feelings for her and he said no, the fabric of their friendship would change.

Sure, they were both grown adults and could laugh off the misunderstanding… but she’d always be left aching, and he’d always know she cared for him in a way he did not care for her.

As if he felt her eyes on him, Adam turned and frowned when he caught her watching him. He always had those soft, almost sad, worried eyes, but when his brows dipped a little more the emotion seemed to increase by about a tenfold. Sometimes it made her want to say nothing, just wrap him in her arms and pull him in close and hold him until he was smiling again. Right now, however, she felt like she’d been caught red-handed and blushed, glancing away quick.

“Everything alright, Glitz?”

Glitter adjusted her seat in the saddle, the leather creaking gently with Honey’s gently paced walk.

“Yeah, I’m alright. You?” She forced herself to look at him and tried for a casual, inquisitive look.

“Yeah… I’m alright.” He was still frowning at her skeptically. He hadn’t bought it.

Adam readjusted his seat and cheated his torso toward her. His palm rested on the saddle horn and his other hands loosely held Bandit’s reins. Today was just a pleasure ride, letting the horses stretch their legs a little bit without working them hard in the arena, so they were currently being given their head. Neither Adam nor Glitter needed to pay much mind. Honey and Bandit had been ridden miles throughout the farmland and forest surrounding the ranch she and Adam boarded them at and were therefore familiar with the terrain. They were more than happy to behave, walking side-by-side through the orchard and flicking their ears to listen to the human’s conversation as Adam and Glitter talked.

“Are you sure you’re alright? You’ve been acting kind of funny ever since you got here. Glitz,” he paused, tipping his cowboy hat back a little so the afternoon light hit his face and those blue eyes showed an ache that immediately made her heart seize. “Hey,” his country drawl was soft, “you know you can tell me everything, right?”

“Of course, Adam. You know I’d never hide anything from you.” Guilt twisted her belly and made her feel sick. She’d told him so many of her deepest, darkest secrets over their hours and hours of conversation, never once hiding a single detail.

“Well alright,” he said with a fair amount of skepticism drenched across his tone. “Just remember you can tell me anything. That’s our deal, ain’t it?”

“Yeah,” Glitter said, and forced the smile on her face. “That’s our deal.”

Glitter faced forward in the saddle and gathered Honey’s reins. 

“Race ya to the creek?” She asked, giving him a glance and then, before he could say yes or no, she squeezed with her knees, adding gentle pressure to Honey’s sides and cracked the reins against her thick, muscled neck. “Yah!” She shouted and Honey responded to her energy, gathering her legs under her and lurching forward.

“Hey!” Adam yelled at her back. Glitters laugh was stolen on the wind, her hat nearly flying off her head if not for the string that held it around her neck. Her black hair tumbled and tugged back, and she leaned forward, squinting against the air blown past her face. 

Honey’s stride ate up the ground in a blur, but the pounding of hooves close behind didn’t take long. Stretching out her neck, Honey threw more of her energy into the run, picking up her hooves and lurching as far as her stride would take her. Glitter hollered and cheered her on, feeling the mare’s energy like a storm. Honey was a young mare and smaller than Adam’s paint horse gelding, Bandit.

The huffs and puffs of Bandit’s breathing soon became louder than the pounding hooves, and Adam pulled him up alongside her, their horses’ nose-to-nose as they ran. Glitter and Adam looked at one another and he smiled that wild, happy smile he sometimes got when they did things like this, free and away from the pressures becoming a weekly televised wrestler gave them. Just the pair of them, horse nerds at heart, out riding in the wide-open countryside.

The tilled farmlands fell away to hills that dipped into valleys just before the line of ponderosa pine trees and firs. The horses began to pull up their gait, careful of the uneven and unpredictable terrain. Glitter knew the creek was coming up as soon as they crossed a few lengths of forest and leaned forward, encouraging Honey with a hopeful shout. Adam held the reins in one hand and snapped them on Bandit’s neck, hollering, one hand holding his hat firm on his blond curls that whipped back in the wind.

_Come on! Come on! Come on!_ Glitter encouraged Honey, her little can-do ranch mare. 

She’d fallen in love with her the second she saw an advertisement for her, the pretty little palomino quarter horse with one sock on her back-left leg. She’d asked Adam to go with her when she looked at her, because she hadn’t ever owned her own horse, always just took lessons on horses that weren’t hers. Adam had been so excited and so thrilled she’d asked him to be there when she looked Honey over. He’d been serious and ready to grill the owner on every question and really check her over to make sure she was perfectly sound and didn’t seem prone to any weaknesses that’d be a problem later.

But then he’d saw the way Glitter looked at her when he saw her and he’d smiled, elbowed her and said, “Why don’t you go say hi to her?”

Now their horses were racing neck and neck…

Honey pulled her nose ahead right at the end, surging forward as if she’d seized a new burst of energy as the winding, babbling waters of the creek came into her line of sight. Glitter laughed and leaned back in the saddle, pulling gently on the reins and guiding Honey to slow her gait to a walk. She turned in her saddle to stick her tongue out at Adam once he’d pulled Bandit up.

“Loser!”

Adam grinned and shook his head, whistling low under his breath as he arched a brow at Honey.

“You got yourself one hell of a mare there, Glitz.”

“I know!” Glitter said and turned back around, patting Honey’s warm, damp neck lovingly. “If I wasn’t so busy in wrestling, I’d seriously consider putting her in working cow horse competitions.”

“She’d win every blue ribbon there is to win, and every trophy too.”

They pulled the horses up at the creek and dropped their reins before sliding out of the saddle, letting them drink and rest after their unplanned burst of energetic fun. As Honey drank, Glitter gently ran her fingers through her mane and patted her neck while murmuring little terms of endearment. She didn’t notice Adam watching her from over Bandit’s back, an adoring smile hung loose over his mouth.

Adam was already leaning against a tree that grew close to the creek’s edge, thick, muscular arms crossed over that equally built chest. He’d readjusted his hat and fixed his curls from where the wind had whipped them a little wild. The brim was pushed back, and Glitter could see his handsome face beneath the dappled shade and sun. Butterflies fluttered in a frenzy in her stomach and she breathed a low breath, desperate to steady herself and keep from revealing anything.

“Hey, what did you want for your prize?” 

“My prize?” Glitter questioned, stepping away from Honey and walking up the bank to where he was lounging upright against the tree trunk.

“Yeah, for you and Honey winning the race. You can ask me for anything, and I have to give it to you.”

Was she imagining things or had Adam’s eyes dropped to her lips for a second there when he asked her that? Why was her heart suddenly racing a thousand beats per second? Why did it feel like she was walking on a tilt-a-whirl instead of the steady ground?

“Oh… I…” She blinked. Shit, she was staring at his lips. Her tongue swept the break between hers and she forced her eyes up to his. He was watching her intently and it made her stomach feel like it was doing those high soaring moonsaults off the ring post that he did. “I didn’t think there was going to be a prize. I was just happy holding it over your head that I was the winner.” She said weakly, trying for a casual, nonplussed shrug that probably didn’t come off as collected and cool as she hoped it would.

“That’s too bad,” Adam said, and he looked at her, that strange, piercing look he’d worn for a moment gone and, in its place, something hopeful and nervous. His eyes dropped. Glitter’s gaze followed and noticed he was wringing his hands. He sniffed hard and forced his eyes back up while hers lifted with them. “I was hoping you might ask me for a kiss.”

Had she heard him correctly?

While she stood in front of him, stunned to absolute silence, Adam drew on some sort of courage she was impressed (and a little turned-on) to see he had in him. He moved toward her and reached out, hands gently grasping her arms and pulling her close until they stood toe-to-toe. She tilted her head up at him, hair tumbling down her back and hat fallen too. One of his hands slipped and wrapped around her back, encouraging her to press against him. The other gently caught her chin between his fingers, turned her head a little and bent to catch his lips perfectly, softly, sweetly against her own.

It took her all but one second to catch up to the reality that was Adam leaning over her, kissing her deeply. She pressed back desperately into him, years of ache and waiting trapped inside her. It unleashed like a storm, and her tongue slipped into his mouth, and her fingers flew to his plaid button-up shirt and curled tight into the fabric before yanking him close. He groaned against her tongue as the length of her body was pushed against his.

They broke apart only when their lungs were starved and stood, inches apart, warm breaths shared. 

“I wish you would have done that like a year and a half ago,” she whispered once she finally felt like she could catch her breath. 

They moved just back enough that their eyes could meet. He smiled.

“Me too, Glitz.” He leaned forward and their foreheads gently pressed together. “Me too.”


End file.
